John Assaraf

John Assaraf, one of the experts featured in The Secret, is a true rags-to-riches story: from street gangs to the New York Times bestseller list – twice: once with his first book, The Street Kid’s Guide to Having it All, and the second time with his most famous book, The Answer (2008). This international best-selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur made a decision that he wanted to become a multi-millionaire when he was 22 – and he now is!

Life

John Assaraf was born in 1961 in Tel Aviv, Israel. His upbringing in war-ravaged Israel exposed him to the violence during the earliest part of his life – his childhood games were followed by gunshots and bomb blasts, and he was involved in street gang culture by the time he was 8.

His life could have easily taken an alternative route, but his parents then decided to move to Montreal, Canada. There he went to work to help support his family: he was delivering newspapers, working as a dry cleaner or picking up orders from a pharmacy. So, while his friends were at school, he was often on the streets, where he fell into a rough crowd of petty criminals – that’s where he got his nickname, “The Street Kid”.

His parents then sent him to work at a Jewish community center near their apartment to keep him out of trouble – which proved to be an invaluable experience for him: in Having It All, Assaraf writes how he loved working there and spending his evenings listening to the rich gentleman talking about how they achieved success: “They would talk about losing and making money, ill health, marital problems and infidelity, God, and a host of other things about which I could never hear enough”.

At the age of 19 Assaraf left home and started to work as a real estate agent. He was very successful:

Interest rates in the real estate market were 21 percent,” says Assaraf, who at age 19, made an impressive $30,000 in his first year selling real estate. The next year, he made $150,000. “I was young and naive and nobody told us that was not normal. I did well despite what was happening around me.” (source)

According to his official website, in the last 25 years Assaraf has grown 5 multi-million dollar companies in real estate, Internet software, brain research and life and business coaching and consulting: he helped take RE/MAX of Indiana to more than 1,500 sales associates who generate more than $5 billion a year in sales, in his mid 30’s he created Bamboo.com – pioneers in Internet Virtual Tour providers which went from 6 employees to over 1,600 with monthly revenues of over $8 million dollars in 14 months… More recently he founded PraxisNow, a brain-research company that creates some of the most powerful evidence-based brain retraining tools and programs in the world.

In his quest to overcome challenges, John Assaraf discovered a unique passion for brain research and quantum physics, and the ways they relate to achieving success in business and life. Today he shares that passion with the others – apart from his appearance in The Secret, he is the best selling author and speaker whose books and programs are helping entrepreneurs understand how to incorporate the psychological and strategic sides of building a successful business and life, and he also appeared on Larry King Live, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Anderson Cooper 360° and other major media outlets.

Teachings and Philosophy

John Assaraf attributes success to the power of the subconscious mind, which he accesses and controls through concentrated visualization. In The Secret, he shares a story about the vision board that he created in 1997, which, during a series of house moves, he put into storage only to discover it four years later: to his surprise, he was now living in the exact same home that he had randomly pasted on his board, and forgotten about it.

In an interview, answering to the question: “What advice would you offer someone who feels emotionally and financially trapped in an unfulfilling job?”, John Assaraf says:

I learned many years ago that our present circumstances are nothing more than effects. The question then must turn to what caused the effect of being and feeling trapped in an unfulfilling job? The answer is beliefs. You see if someone believed that there was an option other than their current situation and that they could do it… they would. They don’t believe they can easily make a change so they don’t. The key for all these people is to realize that yes they can and to figure out how.

His “musts” for achieving goals are:

Balance your goals to balance your life – by pursuing goals in relationships, spiritual, contribution, financial, health and business areas, you will create a more balanced and integrated life.

Aim high – get out of your comfort zone and don’t allow your (perceived) limitations to get in the way.

Write out goals in detail – just the act of writing down goals sets the process in motion, and by being as accurate as possible you invoke some of the natural laws of the universe in your favor.

Make your goals consistent with your values – in order to have a sense of being on purpose consistently, create a list of your highest values and then create your goals around them.

Review your goals daily – each morning and each night review your list of goals, visualize them as completed and imagine how your life looks and feels as a result. This way you will train your brain to expect your goals to materialize.

Finally, don’t get discouraged – you will either achieve your goal, or you will gain insight into whatever is in the way of its achievement.

Books

The Street Kid’s Guide to Having it All (Having It All: Achieving Your Life’s Goals and Dreams)

Quotes

We may not always be aware of it, but we all create and repeat affirmations constantly. The problem is, we typically don’t pay attention to exactly what those affirmations are saying. Often we go through the day giving ourselves all sorts of contradictory, or even negative messages. We may project confidence to the world around us, while our inner dialogue says… “I hope this works. I am so nervous about this. I hope I don’t blow it.” Affirmations are self fulfilling prophecies. If we say, “This is never going to work”… then chances are excellent it never will.

Not having enough money is never the real problem. Money is an effect of what you have been thinking and doing or not thinking and doing in the past. If you want to have more money, you must fix the real cause of why you don’t have enough. It starts with your mindset, beliefs and habits.

One of the best days of your life is when you get so sick and tired of being average that you actually make a decision to do whatever it takes to become more.

In the video below, John Assaraf shares his best manifestation secrets: